A report released today by our friends at the Center for American Progress (CAP) documents the success of automatic voter registration programs championed by Common Cause and other voting rights advocates across the country.

Today, Common Cause activists in a dozen states are delivering petitions urging their U.S. Senators to vote against the nomination of Sen. Jefferson Beauregard “Jeff” Sessions III (R-AL) to serve as U.S. Attorney General. For decades, Sen. Sessions has been an outspoken critic of the Voting Rights Act, one of the nation’s most critical pieces of civil and voting rights legislation, which paved the way for an inclusive democracy. As Attorney General, Sessions would be charged with deciding how and when to enforce the Voting Rights Act, which he has repeatedly condemned as an “intrusive piece of legislation.” The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote today to send the nomination forward to a vote of the full Senate in the coming weeks.

In addition to populist movements that challenged both major party establishments, and was ultimately part of the winning formula for President-elect Donald Trump, voters at the local and state level worked together to win democracy reforms across the country. A total of 20 pro-democracy reform initiatives were on ballots and almost all of them won with comfortable margins.